


music for sad people

by jackstanifold



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Death, Morally Ambiguous Jschlatt (Video Blogging RPF), Morally Ambiguous Wilbur Soot, Past Abuse, ayyyyy tommy's here too now, neither of them are good people and i'm not saying they are but..., pog - Freeform, they deserve this much at least, this isn't a fluffy fic man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:02:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29676030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackstanifold/pseuds/jackstanifold
Summary: “Schlatt, what- why are you here?” He sat up, glaring at the other man, who didn’t flinch, didn’t glare back, just sat down.“Dunno. I’m dead, figured you were too.”“I am. I am, but… that doesn’t answer my question. This is supposed to be my heaven, my paradise, my elysium. You don’t get to be here.”Schlatt peered at him, golden eyes and rectangular pupils, cold and evil and heartless. “You really think you deserve that, Soot? You think you deserve paradise?”
Relationships: Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot, Past Jschlatt/Alexis | Quackity, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 11
Kudos: 105
Collections: Completed stories I've read





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i have a lot of old fics in my docs that i want to get posted, this was the oldest. 
> 
> quick reminder, this is all platonic.
> 
> !tw for: past abuse. nothing graphic, but it's also told through the eyes of the abuser, so...!

Wilbur Soot opened his eyes to darkness.

It wasn’t the normal kind, where there was just no light, this was a new kind, a different kind. He wasn’t sure how to explain it. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to.

It was dark, and it was cold, and he wasn’t really sure what was going on, so he started walking. He wasn’t really sure how long he was walking for, but eventually, he saw something up ahead, and hurried his pace.

It was a field of flowers.

It wasn’t huge, just a few hundred square meters but after being stuck in the darkness, he didn’t care. It was beautiful. It was also illuminated, although he wasn’t sure how, the sky was still void and there was no other obvious source of light.

He felt the grass around his knees as he waded through the wildflowers, and he collapsed, his hands digging into the dirt, face up, breathing in the smell of the Earth.

He wasn’t sure how long he laid there, eyes closed, a gentle smile on his face, the knot in his chest from months of exile loosening, being replaced with a gentle buzzing. After what felt like hours, he heard footsteps approach. 

He didn’t open his eyes, he just listened, until the steps stopped, and the other person sighed. The sound was familiar, somehow, the heaviness tugging at his memories, but he didn’t react. He didn’t want his paradise cut short.

“I know you’re awake.”

His eyes flew open at that, not in surprise, but in recognition. The gruff voice, layered with exhaustion and exasperation, the slight rattle of the lungs as the man spoke.

“Schlatt, what- why are you here?” He sat up, glaring at the other man, who didn’t flinch, didn’t glare back, just sat down.

“Dunno. I’m dead, figured you were too.”

_ The feeling of a sword, piercing his lungs. _

“I am. I am, but… that doesn’t answer my question. This is supposed to be my heaven, my paradise, my elysium. You don’t get to be here.”

Schlatt peered at him, golden eyes and rectangular pupils, cold and evil and heartless. “You really think you deserve that, Soot? You think you deserve paradise?”

Wilbur’s mouth opened, then closed. “I…”

“I wasn’t a good guy, Soot. I know that,” The ram’s voice was harsh as ever, his gaze drifting indifferently to the flower he held in his hands. “But you weren’t much better.”

Wilbur stood, hands trembling as he stared down at the man. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he didn’t. He just turned, and he walked. He left the field, and walked into the darkness, his fury driving him forward.

He was moving in a straight line, he knew that.

There was no way he’d travelled in a circle, but somehow, there it was. The flower field. Schlatt. 

He turned, walking more.

He walked in the void for hours, avoiding the field as best he could, but it never worked. It always appeared just up ahead. After what could have been days, he gave in, returning to the field. Schlatt was sitting right where he’d left him, staring up at the void of a sky, face blank.

“We’re trapped.”

“Figured.”

Wilbur huffed, sitting down across from the older man, resting his chin on his knee. “I’m not a bad guy, you know. I don’t… I don’t deserve this.”

“Yeah you do.”

He sent another scathing glare at the ex-president. “What did I even do that was so bad?”

“Created child soldiers. Ignored your kid. Manipulated the shit out of Techno. Lied to Tubbo about your intentions. Tried to blow up my country.”

“It was never yours,” Wilbur snapped, but there was no real heat to it. “And… I did blow it up, in the end, I suppose. I just…”

He sighed, slumping. “I just wanted L’Manburg.”

Schlatt snorted. “Yeah, me too buddy.”

“Not like that,” Wilbur muttered. “That’s different. We’re different.”

“Are we?”

At that, Wilbur looked up. “Yeah, we are. You stole the election, and exiled me and Tommy, and- and-”

“An election that you rigged, Soot!” Schlatt cried, pupils blowing wide in frustration. “I exiled the two of you because I knew you wouldn’t hesitate to overthrow the government again!”

“... You killed Tubbo.”

“And you let it happen.”

Wilbur hesitated, watching the other man carefully.

“You hit Alex.”

That stopped Schlatt, his eyes fixing on the grass. “Yeah.”

“Do you have an excuse for that?”

“For beating my husband?” Schlatt chuckled darkly. “No, no I don’t. I was pissed, and he wouldn’t get out of my face. I lost my patience and he was in the way.”

“You’re a dick.”

“So’re you.”

Wilbur curled in on himself. “Stop saying that. I’m not… I’m a good guy. I’m the good guy, I was the protagonist, you were the villain, stop-” “-We both know that’s bullshit.-” “-Shut up, Schlatt!” Wilbur threw himself to his feet, staring down at the hybrid with disgust and rage. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“...And you do?”

The musician froze at that, staring at his old friend.

They hadn’t spoken face to face, one on one like this for years, since Live shut down. He remembered the ram being well built, with broad shoulders, a round face and an easy smile. His horns were always well polished, always gleaming, but here, now… He looked like shit. His shoulders slumped, and he’d lost a lot of weight. His face looked slimmer with the mutton chops, but it looked sickly, too pale with eyebags too dark. His suit was wrinkled, his jacket straight up missing. 

Schlatt would never let himself go like this.

“What happened to you?”

“What-” Schlatt laughed, harshly, hysterically, not his usually menacing chuckle. “What happened to me? What happened to me, he says, oh my fucking…” He stood, glaring up at Wilbur, who was still a head or two taller. “Life happened, Soot. While you were off with your family, making your trashy little country, I was working. I was making money, getting power.”

Wilbur stared at him, stared at the anger in his eyes, and for the first time in a while, felt none of his own. “You made yourself sick, you know.”

Schlatt hesitated at that, his mouth closely slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, the doctor said- Yeah, I know.”

“You died of a heart attack, in my drug van.”

“Stroke, actually,” Schlatt muttered, sitting back down. The fight was gone from both of them. “And we’d reclaimed it. At the time, it was Manburg’s official meeting spot.”

Wilbur huffed. “Figures.”

“Yeah,” The New Yorker watched his old friend sit down, before asking the question they’d both been dreading. “How’d you go, in the end?”

Wilbur’s eyes scanned his face, every exhausted crevice, every little wrinkle, and he sighed. “I hit the button. I thought that’d kill me, but…”

“But it didn’t. What did?”

“Phil.”

Schlatt whistled under his breath. Wilbur looked away. He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want the pity, the condescension, the ‘oh, little wilby’s own daddy came to kill him?’ that he knew the man would give. 

“That’s shit, did it hurt?”

Wilbur thought about that. “Not… not physically.”

Schlatt hummed.

Wilbur looked down at his hands, at the dirt and soot and blood that covered them. “How about you? Did it hurt when you went out?”

“Eh,” Schlatt jerked a shoulder. “Not really. It was sorta like everything just went numb, and then I was here.”

“Alex smiled, as you died.”

“I know.”

“He hated you.”

“I know,” Schlatt sighed, looking down at the ring on his finger. “I never wanted to marry him, you know. I never saw him like that. He was just… God, I don’t know. I tried to run away, the day of the wedding, he chased after me.”

Wilbur chuckled. “That’s Big Q for you. He always knew what he wanted.”

“He didn’t want what he should,” Schlatt muttered. “He didn’t want what was good for him.”

“Neither did you.”

Schlatt laughed. “Neither did I.”

There was a silence, before Wilbur tentatively spoke. “He’s getting remarried, you know. They’d been planning it since before your death, before your divorce, even.”

Schlatt hummed. “Yeah. Karl and Sapnap, right? They used to show up around the white house a lot, whispering behind closed doors and shit.”

“You knew?”

“Yeah. I’m not dumb Soot, I know when something’s going on.”

“Why didn’t you do anything?”

“... I loved him, you know. Not romantically, but… he was a good kid. Figured, hey, if they’re going to take him away, keep him safe… might as well let them. You know?”

“I know.”

Schlatt slumped backward, laying in the grass, staring into nothingness, his ears twitching a bit, his breath coming out in little shuddering sighs. Wilbur hesitated, before laying beside him.

“What about you? Why’d you blow up your own country?” 

“It wasn’t mine,” Wilbur felt Schlatt’s eyes turn to him and sighed. “L’Manburg was never just a piece of land. It was… It was in the people’s hearts. When they stopped believing in it, it stopped existing.”

“No one stopped believing Soot. No one but you.”

Wilbur felt his eyes burn and looked away, stubbornly. “They did. You made sure of that.”

“Why are you so convinced that everything I did was a personal attack?”

“What?”

Schlatt just shook his head, staring up at the sky again. “You think everyone’s out to get you. Most of them literally don’t give a shit.”

Wilbur hesitated. “Yeah. Yeah, no, I know, but…”

“Will.”

“...Jonathan.”

“You were a piece of shit. So was I. Now, we’re dead pieces of shit. That’s it. Stop spewing excuses.”

“... Would you go back? If you had the chance?”

“Hell no.”

“... Me neither, I think. Life was… God.”

“Yeah,” Schlatt chuckled. “Yeah it was.”

“J?”

“Yeah, Lover Boy?”

“I missed you.”

It was silent for a while, just the two of them and the nothingness, before Schlatt sighed. “I missed you too, Will. More than you could realize.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all i know is add chapters to previously completed stories, eat hot chip and lie.

Wilbur Soot had been dead for a while.

He wasn’t sure how long, a month, at least, because a month was how long it took for Marcelo to appear. Or, how long between his death and Marcelo’s passing in the real world.

It felt like it’d been at least a month since then, maybe longer, but maybe it was just the company.

He’d always thought of hell as a burning hole in the ground, fire and demons and screaming.

Instead, he got a blank white world, with nothingness that stretched on as far as his eyes could see, a small field of flowers the only real release.

Then he met the others.

Schlatt was still an alcoholic, somehow, but there was no alcohol. The first few days were hell, he was always angry, always screaming. Then he stopped talking, and just cried. Then he got over it, and things were almost back to how they were when they were kids.

Wilbur knew how he felt. 

He missed cigarettes.

Marcelo arrived after a lifetime and a half of waiting in comfortable silence.

He was odd, and loud, and wouldn’t stop talking about his old friends, but he wasn’t too bad, in all honesty. He taught Wilbur Spanish, and argued with Schlatt over pronunciation, but it was a nice change from the life he’d led before.

One day, or night, they all laid on the ground, as if stargazing, although there was nothing to see and didn’t look at each other, and they spilled their darkest secrets.

Wilbur admitted he’d been unraveling, his mind being reduced to nothing but paranoia and anger. He’d been so obsessed with L’Manburg, so obsessed with being on top. He remembered the feeling of a sword slipping between his ribs, held by the man he called his father. He remembered what he’d said to Tubbo, what he’d screamed with his last breath.  _ ‘You’re the president of a crater.’ _

Schlatt told them about his arguments with Alex, about his health fading. He said he’d always known that it was going to happen, but he’d never admitted it to himself, never let himself think about it. The day in the drug van, with bottles of whiskey flowing through his veins, so much adrenaline in his body, his heart had given out. He’d died staring at everyone he’d ever loved. When Wilbur asked why he’d told Fundy he would never be a man, he’d shrugged, “Forgot he was trans.”

Marcelo had told them about home, about Mexico, about his friends. He told them about his girlfriend, Desiree, and how they met, and he told them about finding Tommy, in isolation. As Wilbur heard about how his little brother was being treated, he felt his fists clench in blind, white hot rage. Marcelo told them about his death, getting stabbed in front of Tommy to prove a point, and even Schlatt winced. “Dream’s fucked up, man,” Marcelo muttered, picking at the sleeves of his hoodie. “He’s fucked up.”

The void wasn’t so bad anymore.

It had been a while since Marcelo arrived when the next one appeared.

“Hey Manifold.” Schlatt said.

Jack stared at him, stared at Wilbur, stared at Marcelo, and then he shook his head.

“No. No, I’m not doing this. Fuck you, fuck you all, I’m not dying here, not now.”

So he turned and walked away.

They weren’t sure what happened to him, if he ever found anything, or if he just kept walking forever. Schlatt said he was probably still out there, somewhere, but Wilbur wasn’t sure.

If anyone could ignore their way out of death, it was Jack Manifold.

It was quiet in the nothingness, except for Marcelo’s voice, and Schlatt’s laugh, and Wilbur’s singing.

And then one day, all three of them went silent, just sitting in the whiteness. They all felt it. There was someone new. Someone important. Someone who wasn’t supposed to be here yet.

Tommy was crouching on the ground, staring at his hands.

Marcelo and Schlatt let Wilbur take lead, let him walk up to his baby brother, gazing down at him.

He wore his usual red bandana over his baseball shirt, his cargo shorts looked cleaner than they’d ever been. His hair was a bright yellow, soft and wavy. He looked up at Wilbur, sapphire blue eyes wide, and then he hugged him, wrapping his arms around him, pressing his face into his chest, where the sword once pierced his skin.

“It’s ok,” Wilbur whispered in his hair. “It’s alright.”

“I’m so so sorry,” Tommy sobbed. “I shouldn’t’ve… I… fuck.”

“It’s not your fault. Whatever happened wasn’t your fault, ok?”

Tommy sniffed, stepping back to look at him, face puffy and red. “Wilby… I missed you.”

Wilbur felt his eyes burn, and he nodded, rubbing at Tommy’s shoulder lightly. “Yeah. Yeah, I missed you too, Toms.”

Tommy’s eyes shifted over his shoulder, before widening. “Schlatt?”

The ram hybrid froze, wide-eyed, like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Uh. Yeah. Yeah, hey kid.”

Tommy eyed him, his clean white dress shirt, his neatly pressed pants, his loosely tied tie, and he shook his head. “You look… different.”

“Yeah well,” Schlatt shrugged. “I am different, in a way.”

“Yeah,” Tommy hesitated, before stepping towards his old hero, and dragging him into a hug. “You really are.”

Schlatt’s face went through so many emotions, Wilbur wasn’t even sure he could name them all, but finally, the businessman wrapped his arms around the kid, and sighed. Tommy used to idolise him, they all knew. Schlatt was a role model that Tommy could only ever dream of meeting, until he wasn’t, until he was everything wrong in the world, until he killed his best friend.

Schlatt closed his eyes as Tommy stepped back, turning to Marcelo.

“Hi Mexican Dream.”

Marcelo grinned. “Ey man.”

“...I’m not calling you that anymore.”

“Alright, that’s fine. My real name’s Marcelo, if that’s any better.”

Tommy nodded. “Ok. Hi Marcelo.”

“Hi Tommy.”

There was a pause, before Tommy practically tackled the man in a hug. Marcelo went down with a laugh, shaking his head when Wilbur moved to pick him up. For a while, they stayed like that, Tommy with his face buried in the man’s shoulder, Wilbur sitting on one side, Schlatt on the other.

Then Tommy sat up with a gasp, turning to Schlatt.

“Charlie and Connor!” He cried. “Charlie and Connor joined the SMP and you weren’t even there!”

Schlatt’s face fell. “Oh… goddamnit, it could’ve been a reunion…”

Tommy nodded, dejectedly. “Yeah, but you motherfuckers had to go and die.”

For some reason, that was incredibly funny to Wilbur, and he let out a laugh. Tommy jumped, blinking at him. “Goddamnit, Tommy, I missed you so much.”

Tommy grinned slyly. “We  _ are  _ brothers, you know.”

“Stop it, I  _ will  _ cry,” Wilbur said, and he was only half joking for once. 

“Hey, man, I don’t want to, like, kill the mood, but uh,” Marcelo frowned at Tommy. “What happened, man? How’d you die?”

Tommy froze at that, going silent. Marcelo pushed himself upright, and the boy moved away, tucking his knees to his chest.

"Tommy?"

"... It was Dream. He was in prison, he… we thought- I thought we won. But something went wrong, I got stuck in there with him. He… he stomped my skull in, heh."

"That bastard." Wilbur snarled, feeling his lip curl. 

"Yeah…"

Wilbur looked at him, at the bags under his eyes, and the new scars, and the way his hands shook, and he sighed.

"I'm glad you're here, Tommy. Fuck, I wish you weren't, I wish you had longer, but… I'm glad you're here." 

"...Me too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayo, tommyinnit brainrot check.

**Author's Note:**

> uhhhhhh go listen to music for sad people by zalinki.
> 
> follow me on tumblr @jackstanifold for no real reason.


End file.
